Asus Planning Netbook With Slot-In Mobile Phone 75
An anonymous reader writes "Taiwanese manufacturer Asus is planning a netbook with a slot-in mobile phone that will double as a 3G communications module, according to a distributor. The arrangement is apparently meant to be an easy way to use the same SIM card and data account for both a phone and a portable computer. The phone module, from an Israeli company called Modu, is already on sale, together with an array of feature-phone shells and other devices that it's designed to slot into. There is some comparison being made with the iPhone and iPad — except that with the Modu approach, you can slot the phone into the netbook."
I always thought it would be great for the MacBook (Score:2, Interesting)
They could replace the trackpad area with a slot for the iPhone/iPod. It could server as a dockable computer you could take around to whatever machine you need.
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Haptic feedback from your touchpad, plus DS-like features. Very sexy, and the only company who could get away with it would be Apple.
Re:I always thought it would be great for the MacB (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's always there, it's just sometimes silent.
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So what happens when you're on the phone and need to look up something on the MacBook? :P
Re:I always thought it would be great for the MacB (Score:2)
All you have to do is either plug your iPhone into your MacBook with USB or pair them over Bluetooth and the MacBook will be using the iPhone's Internet connection and both devices remain fully functional.
I can't see how your idea or the Acer solution is better.
Bluetooth (Score:3, Interesting)
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You can use any PC/Laptop with Blackberry over Bluetooth to get on the Internet with BB's SIM/Account.
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My N1 can use wifi, which gives me excellent speeds, but really hurts the battery.
There is also USB tether, but I can appreciate something like this. Very clean and modern.
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I was definitely invisioning slotting my Nexus One into the side of my laptop, on the palmrest.
RTFA Fail : (
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Or even just a separate HSDPA modem. In the UK anyway, a teathering plan for your cell phone generally costs the same per month as a separate modem plan - about £15 per month
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In the US, it depends on the carrier, but some let you tether for as little as $30. (And on many phones, you can hack them on cheaper data plans to allow tethering.)
On the flip side, for "unlimited" data on an aircard, it's usually $60.
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Think about more from the sellers point of view. All new singing and dancing smartbook with dockable smartphone, for one low initial payment together with a whole lot of expensive and highly profitable phone contract payments (I wasn't about to lie about that part). From the typical users perspective, they know it will work, no weird compatibility problems and it really is logically useful. The smartbook as a charging, long term data storage, easy data input and upload, large screen expansion device, all w
How is this better than tethering? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, if only we had some standard universal serial bus that might allow us to connect a phone to a netbook, without relying on a custom "slot" and buying both products from one company. Maybe we could use some wireless short range networking method too. And then if only there was a way for the netbook to make use of the phone's Internet connection, so you can use the same SIM and data account for both.
The modular approach addresses one of the great problems of mobile devices for both buyers and designers: you cannot, with current technology, have a device that is both large enough for comfortable extended use and small enough to carry around all the time.
The issue is exemplified by Apple's Iphone and the larger Ipad. The only way to have the advantages of both Apple devices is to buy both and synchronise data between them.
But how is this netbook and phone bundle any different to buying a phone and netbook? Is the price much better, for example?
And how does this device solve the synchronisation problem - do I magically have access to the same data on both, without synchronisation?
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> But how is this netbook and phone bundle any different to buying a phone and netbook? Is the price much better, for example?
It makes it more difficult to use the phone while surfing the net...
Re:How is this better than tethering? (Score:5, Funny)
If only we had some sort of subscriber identity module that could be easily transferred between telecommunications devices.
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The operative word is "easily".
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Bluetooth? Surely something could be done to share the SIM data over bluetooth in a way that the two devices could use it?
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You can tether over bluetooth. That is essentially the thing you just said, except with the slight bandwidth-over-wireless thing.
Worked well enough for me and my Motorola V3i anyhow.
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No, I meant just share the sim rather than tethering. Ie the other device would have a 3G transceiver in it too, but use the sim remotely in some way. Ie low power.
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Ah, I getcha now. Yes, that'd be very handy.
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Why not just get an extra SIM for the same plan? Dual, and even triple SIMs are available from operators that care about their customers.
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(Unless your phone declines to support it, or your carrier somehow locks it, or your device doesn't understand it. In any case, though, it exists.)
Even if it didn't exist, SIM cards aren't exactly expensive devices. Wholesale price lists aren't just leaping to the top of my google searches at present; but, based on the prices quoted for new prepaid SIMs, any carrier could easily afford to provide extra SIMs for $5-$10 a pop, tying them to an existing account.
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PCMCIA? Modern phones are small enough you could easily fit one into a dual PCMCIA slot.
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Carrier Issues? (Score:1)
BTW, the Modu website [slashdot.org] catalog is annoying as hell.
Re:Carrier Issues? (Score:4, Informative)
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and this is better than tethering...how? (Score:2)
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True, tethering sucks batteries quickly, but USB charging is right there from the laptop.
Pointless gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
This is yet another proprietary pointless gimmick that won't take off unless it is really really really well designed and constructed, and these things rarely are...
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Prediction (Score:1)
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Reaches over and presses the "accept call" button on the desktop only to hear your wife start to complain at you through the laptop speakers and wonders what the hell am I doing in a starbucks, I like real c
Don't see this being useful (Score:2)
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Waste of time (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see why they're bothering at all, especially when Android 2.2 is going to have Wireless tethering as standard. Essentially all they've done is opt for a proprietary, limited connection interface when there's at least 3 universal ones out there that could be used (USB, Wifi and Bluetoth).
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And nokia s60 phones already had this for over a year. Pretty much any Nokia S60 smartphone + SIM card with 3G internet contract + nokia PC software = free tethering to any USB equipped laptop.
Or, if you want to be truly innovative, get application called joikuspot and have your phone act as a Wi-Fi 3G modem.
Modu back in the news (Score:1)
Replace "netbook" with "docking station" (Score:3, Insightful)
Cell phones are nearing the point where they are powerful enough to be a primary computer. All they need is a better display and keyboard, so why not put everything into the cell phone, and then sell docking stations in laptop and desktop form factors?
The connector would need a few more pins than just USB to support video (perhaps a few lanes of PCI Express), but really, we have the technology now.
Everything can live in your phone.
Modular computer (not just phone) (Score:1)
Agreed. I think Modu should have taken the next leap and designed modular computers. Imagine a computer smaller than half the size of a cellphone or a handheld PC of the late nineties (Psion, anyone?). You can then create "jackets" that will turn the module into the core of a variety of gadgets such as:
(a) a cellphone
(b) a tablet
(c) a netbook
(d) a PDA (do they still make these?)
(e) the onboard computer of a car (doubling as the ignition key)
(f) a toaster
(g) a Chumby
I can even imagine Intel or AMD selling no
Docking stations for cars, too! (Score:2)
Many cars now come with touchscreens for navigation and other system control.
How about a docking station for your iPhone in your car? A bigger screen, better oriented for driving, access to music, apps..
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No, that's just a stand to use an iPad as a picture frame. It doesn't provide a larger display, or in any way let you use your iPad as a laptop or desktop computer.
Great idea; forget it (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a number of issues here:
1. Tethering your 'phone, via USB or bluetooth, is a lot easier these days. Easily within the reach of those technically sophisticated enough to use/need it.
(Plus it's nice to be able to charge your phone via USB - saves a wall-wart when travelling)
2. What happens when your 'phone rings but it's plugged into your 'puter? So now you need to keep your bluetooth earpiece in?
3. Linked to the above point, can foresee some funky situations if you're using bluetooth audio...I use my PC as a handsfree / music player for my phone sometimes
4. Looks like a great way to lose/get stolen your phone along with your laptop.
I went through this whole 'integration' thing with in-car PCs;
A PC which does bluetooth phone, mp3, DVD and also sat-nav? Too complex
Tomtom that does bluetooth handsfree? Have to cut the radio when it 'rings'; crappy sound.
In the end me and my wife found the best compromise to be a car audio set that does bluetooth handfree, (cuts the music automatically when you answer a call; great sound over the car stereo speakers), but a stand-alone sat-nat device.
Sometimes too much integration is a bad thing...
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Well modu's website shows they have no grasp of internet technology. It's flash laden crap.
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I've got a Nexus One with my bluetooth car stereo... it does navigation, bluetooth music to the car stereo, calls and everything all together, interruption of the music to speak navigation directions or to take a call. Integration is a good thing, if it's done intelligently.
USB "slot" (Score:1)
My notebook has USB "slot" which can plug in my iphone 3G communications module..
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Indeed, if all this is is a standard USB port but built into a special phone-shaped clip so you don't have to have the trailing USB cables, I can sort of see how it was a good idea- although I can't say I'd go for it myself.
If it's proprietary connection crap then it is just plain stupid, and I can't really see what they hope to achieve.
The real problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
The big issue is that carriers, for the most part, absolutely don't want phone/computer local connections to be useful. And, to the degree that they are willing to let them be, they still want to be paid for it. The real control freaks don't even want stuff like bluetooth OBEX to work, so that you have to get pictures off the phone by MMS ($.50 a pop, ka-ching!) and ringtones and things on to the phone from some walled garden store($2.99/ea, ka-ching!). Even among the more moderate, most of them want you to pay more if you are using the phone as an internet connection for a full PC, even if the phone is a smartphone with an existing data plan.
You can, already, get all kinds of useful integration between PCs and phones, with no stupid proprietary hardware bundling nonsense; but you often have to buy unsubsidized handsets(and then pair them with voice/data plans that are priced to include paying off a handset subsidy) and either pay extra or risk TOS disconnection if you do any serious data tethering.
This is reminds me of seeing stories about this device [multichannel.com] a while back. A "portable DVR" that would dock to record shows, and then be removable to watch them out and about. Incredibly stupid idea(Why would you want your DVR's capacity to be constrained by a portable form factor, when gigantic 3.5 inch drives cost nearly nothing? Why would you want a DVR that can't record shows when you are out of the house? Why tie the lifetime of a DVR, that should be able to pretty much sit there and Just Work for years, possibly with the occasional HDD upgrade/replacement to the lifespan of a delicate mobile device?). However, the simple, obvious technical solution(make the DVR networked, transfer recordings to whatever mobile device you want) is largely deemed unacceptable by DRM and control-hungry cable companies, so you get this really ugly hack. Similarly, connecting a phone to a computer using existing ubiquitous technologies should be fucking child's play. There is absolutely no need for any proprietary bundle solution, except because of carrier control freakery.
This is a hardware solution to a paper problem. (Score:2)
Strangely complicated solution (Score:2)
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in the US, two of the 4 major carriers don't use SIM. the other two that do use SIM have incompatible 3G networks. if you built the modem hardware into the computer, it'd be for one carrier (or lots of $$$ to and space to support the networks of all the carriers).
Already patented (Score:2)
Palm^WHP has a patent on it which is about 10-15 years old.
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Two SIM cards (Score:2)
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Touchpad (Score:1)
Déjà vu (Score:1)
jodiefoster39 (Score:1)
I own a modu phone and a netbook, and I love them. (Score:2)
The modu is especially nifty. It's roughly the size of an iPod nano (and it has 2gb for music). That said, I can't recommend them except as easy things to carry in case you get into a pinch. I only carry them when I don't intend to need them. Asus is right, there's lots of room for improvement. Shoving the modu into the netbook shouldn't be the priority though. The current modu doesn't even do 3G. The top 3 priorities should be:
Other way around! (Score:2)
What might be useful to me is a netbook body to plug my N900 into, to get a bigger screen, full-size keyboard, more battery power, etc. It only has a 600Mhz CPU but it does everything except playing some higher-res videos.
Actually this is something that could probably be hacked together from off-the-shelf parts. Get a small BT keyboard, an LCD and speakers with RCA inputs, a battery pack for it all that also provides power to the PDA, and have the N900 plug in so that the screen acts as a touchpad when dock
Problem not with technology. (Score:1)
All seems MOOT if our damn providers would allow us to have more than one SIM with the same essential ID. ...
When my home phone rings, several phones ring, but I only answer one.
When I need to make a call, I pick up one phone and make a call
Why not the same with mobile phones?
Why can't my laptop have a SIM and my phone use one with the same identity and on the same plan?
The problem is not with the technology, but as usual with companies that have outdated views of how SH*T should work.
Whats wrong with bluetooth (Score:1)
This is rather silly. You can tether your cell phone with bluetooth anyway. i.e. if you have an unlocked phone.